A Year of Joan
by CountTheCrows
Summary: Joan reflects about the past year in her journal. All episodes including the most recent


A Year of Joan  
  
Dear Journal,  
  
So where do I start? I've never really had a journal before but after this year I feel I just need to let it all out. 2003 has just been a really wild ride. Well, I guess the actual ride started in 2001 when my brother Kevin got into a car accident and wound up a paraplegic. After that my family kind of spiraled into something I can't even begin to describe. We tried to cope, to manage, but it didn't work. My parents had the idea that maybe we just needed to go somewhere new, a fresh start where nobody would know us as the Girardi's, the family with the cripple. They wanted to be some place where nobody would give us that look when we went to eat, or at the supermarket. So in June of this year my parent's dropped the bomb that we were moving, to a town called Arcadia which was in Maryland. Maryland, I thought I had been shot in the gut. My whole life was in Boston. That's where I grew up for the past sixteen years of my life. For two weeks straight I cried myself to sleep, hoping that it was just some dream, that this all was some nightmare that I would wake up from. I would wake up and Kevin would be walking, my parents would be happy, Luke, my other brother would just be, well I guess how he always is, and I would be home with my life. Now, I can't even recognize what my life used to be. See the thing is, my life got even weirder.  
  
One night in September I heard someone calling my name, but I just chalked it up to my mind playing tricks on me and went on sleeping. But then, the next morning I look outside my window and there is this guy! He's staring at me, watching me with this intense look in his eyes. I freaked out and went downstairs and told my parents. To my dismay he was gone. I didn't know what had just happened. While riding the bus to school I felt that someone was watching me, so I turned around to see this really hot guy. He follows me when I get off the bus and as we're talking he starts telling me all of these facts about my life and then reveals that he is God. So I'm thinking Yeah okay weirdo. But the thing is, something in my gut told me this was God. He tells me to get a job at a bookstore, which I do. I think this is just a one time occurrence but man was I wrong.  
  
Since then I have been visited by God each week, in different forms and each time he or she, gives me an assignment. One of those was to "stop squandering my potential," so I joined AP chemistry, where I met my only two friends in Arcadia, they are actually my best friends, Adam Rove and Grace Polk. Next I was told to join the chess team, then build a boat, have a yard sale, join the cheerleading team, help someone in need, and then the one that still makes me sick to my stomach, to prevent Adam's sculpture from being in the art show. Adam. I never really thought I could make a friend so quickly, but let's face it; I wasn't really a good friend to him. I took him for granted. Adam is an artist. He makes these incredible things out of well, stuff. At first I just thought he was a great big weirdo. But then I got to know him. Besides Luke, Adam is the first person I've come close to telling about my relationship with God. I know he would understand, or he would have. Thing is, Adam's mother died in November of 2000, which is why he hates November. He said that making his art brought him closer to her. But I got an assignment to keep Adam's work out of the art show, and I didn't know how to explain it to him. I even told him I would buy it, and then he offered to just give it to me. Adam wound up winning the art show and getting offered $500 for it. I didn't get it, not then, why this was a bad thing. I then found out the truth, that Adam was going to drop out of school. I did the only thing I knew; I smashed his art and broke his heart along with it. Since then he won't talk to me, and who could blame him?  
  
After that I was asked to ace an exam on none other than Joan of Arc. Which I did, and then got accused of cheating, and Grace started a rally against me retaking the exam. Grace, what can I say about Grace? She's quite the person. I know there's something beneath that exterior of hers, I'm sure I'll find out soon. Anyway I wound up retaking the test and getting another A, only to further piss off Grace who got suspended for the rally and unsuccessfully apologizing to Adam. Because of the art show debacle my family decided to attend therapy where Kevin broke down and finally told us what happened that night, he let his friend drive drunk. I was shocked. Which I guess is why I was so reluctant for my next assignment, to get my license. But I did and I guess I'm an okay driver. My last assignment drove an even bigger wedge between me and Adam and my family who already thinks I'm nuts. I was assigned to ask Steve Ramsey, a bully who had just beaten up Adam to the winter formal. I did but things did not turn out the way I expected. But what can you do? Nothing I guess. What does 2004 hold in store for me? I have no clue. This year has just been an incredible learning experience, I have learned more about life in these past few months then people do in their entire adolescence.  
  
So does talking to God bother me? Not really, not anymore. The way I see it is I have been talking to God in one way or another for the past 16 years; it was only just recently that I have begun to listen. 


End file.
